At Your Cervix

In this episode Midwife Molly O'Brien joins Emma and Grainne to discuss childbirth.  Molly has seen many women and birthing people suffer long and difficult births which led her to explore physiology and the biomechanics of human movement and apply it to the birthing process. She discusses the disruptors of the physiological birthing process and how women and birthing people can optimise the birth process. This is a great episode for anyone that works with pregnant women, is pregnant or has a pregnant friend or relative. 

To find out more about Molly and her course visit www.optimalbirth.co.uk

Molly O’Brien is an experienced, registered midwife whose 24 years of practice is guided by a salutogenic approach to birth with an emphasis on preserving, supporting and optimising the physiological birth process to achieve the best possible birth outcome and experience for the mother and her baby.

She created and teaches a course for midwives, doulas, obstetricians and birth associates called ‘Biomechanics for Birth’. The course has evolved from a combination of clinical midwifery, an autodidactic pursuit of knowledge about biomechanics from sources including physiotherapy, osteopathy and movement specialists and a career attending more than a thousand births, refining the midwifery skills of perception and observation of movements, positions and attitudes of birthing women.

Attending hundreds of undisturbed physiological births in the home and midwife led birth unit setting gave her the opportunity to make a systematic exploration of midwifery skills and observations that can help identify the reasons behind labour dystocia (difficult labour).

When labour dystocia is caused by a mechanical imbalance it requires a mechanical solution using specific and directed movement. The techniques and strategies that emerged from this time helped her to revolutionise her practice and she began to regularly witness rapid and dramatic progress as she put them to use during “difficult labours”

Her aim is to introduce an understanding and resolution of the root cause of mechanical labour dystocia into mainstream midwifery and obstetric practice and education of maternity health care practitioners. There is a real possibility to significantly reduce intervention, increase straightforward births and improve the birth experience.

Molly teaches the principles of biomechanics in the birth setting as part of a Masters degree in two universities in the UK and in a Chilean midwifery school. She is regularly invited to teach in NHS hospitals and she frequently teaches the course online to a global audience of multidisciplinary practitioners.

In this episode, we speak to Physical Therapist and runner Kacy Seynders who has had a turbulent journey through her childhood and adolescent years suffering from eating disorders, over-exercising and Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (RED-s). 

Kacy candidly discusses the huge physical impact that her eating disorder and RED-s have had on her physical, mental health and her athletic performance. She talks about how she has finally managed to untangle the complicated relationship between body weight, body composition and performance and how she now not only leads a healthy lifestyle that nurtures her physical and mental wellbeing but how she now uses her experiences to create a healthy culture for the athletes that she works with.  

To find out more about Kacy visit her website and read her blog 

https://kacyseynders.wordpress.com

Welcome back to Season 4 of At Your Cervix the Podcast! We are delighted to bring to you this fascinating discussion with Loughborough University Researcher Joanna Harper about Transgender Athlete Performance. Joanna, originally from a small town north of Toronto is a medical researcher at Loughborough University in the United Kingdom where her research focuses on this very topic. Author of the book, Sporting Gender: The History, Science and Stories of Transgender and Intersex Athletes, she has also authored articles on gender diverse athletes in peer-reviewed scientific publications. Since 2015, Joanna has served as an advisor on transgender and intersex athletes to multiple sporting federations including the International Olympic Committee.

In this episode we discuss what it means to be a transgender athlete, what confusion and questions arise within high performance competition and what the science actually tells us in relation to whether transgender women hold a "sporting advantage".

Joanna's peer reviewed scientific publications include:

Pitsiladis Y, Harper J, Betancurt JO, Martinez-Patino MJ, Parisi A, Wang G, Pigozzi F. Beyond Fairness: The Biology of Inclusion for Transgender and Intersex Athletes. Curr Sports Med Rep. 2016 Nov/Dec;15(6):386-388. doi: 10.1249/JSR.0000000000000314. PMID: 27841808.

Harper J, Lima G, Kolliari-Turner A, Malinsky FR, Wang G, Martinez-Patino MJ, Angadi SS, Papadopoulou T, Pigozzi F, Seal L, Barrett J, Pitsiladis YP. The Fluidity of Gender and Implications for the Biology of Inclusion for Transgender and Intersex Athletes. Curr Sports Med Rep. 2018 Dec;17(12):467-472. doi: 10.1249/JSR.0000000000000543. PMID: 30531465.

Harper J, Martinez-Patino MJ, Pigozzi F, Pitsiladis Y. Implications of a Third Gender for Elite Sports. Curr Sports Med Rep. 2018 Feb;17(2):42-44. doi: 10.1249/JSR.0000000000000455. PMID: 29420345.

Harper J, O'Donnell E, Sorouri Khorashad B, McDermott H, Witcomb GL. How does hormone transition in transgender women change body composition, muscle strength and haemoglobin? Systematic review with a focus on the implications for sport participation. Br J Sports Med. 2021 Aug;55(15):865-872. doi: 10.1136/bjsports-2020-103106. Epub 2021 Mar 1. PMID: 33648944; PMCID: PMC8311086.

As always, we appreciate any discussion raised by our episodes so please contact us via Instagram (@at_yourcervixthepodcast ) 

Welcome to our season finale where we are joined by world-renowned pelvic health expert Jilly Bond.  Today Jilly joins us to discuss bladder pain syndrome is and what we can do about it? 

Jilly is also a researcher and educator based in Wales, UK, with a specialist interest in pelvic pain. She has worked clinically in various areas of the NHS, led a private hospital service and her own clinic. Professionally she has sat on the executive board for Pelvic, Obstetric and Gynaecological Physiotherapy (POGP), as part of the POGP Journal editorial team, and has been part of the organising committee for IUGA symposiums. She is now providing professional mentoring, live and online courses for Physios, collaborating on international research projects and is a regular conference speaker.

She received her masters degree in 2017 looking at self-efficacy in pelvic pain treatment and is at the beginning of a PhD in pelvic pain and interoception. Her research interests include understanding neurocentric treatment mechanisms in visceral pain and somatoperceptual distortions. Her Youtube channel has free resources for patients and clinicians. If you're interested in pelvic pain she'd love to hear from you.

https://www.jillybond.com/

Why is sleep so important? What effect can a lack of sleep have on your mental and physical health? Can caffeine really affect your sleep that much? What can you do when sleep is hard to come by? 

These are the type of areas around sleep that we delve into with Matt Philips this week. 

For over ten years, Matt was part of a multidisciplinary team of physiotherapists, sports therapists, osteopaths, podiatrists and massage therapists. In witnessing the coming & going of many misconceptions within the Running Industry, Matt decided through his website www.runchatlive.com to try and help both runners and therapists evolve from outdated ideas and embrace a more evidence-based approach to running injury prevention & management.  Matt has written for numerous websites & running magazines including Runners Connect & Outdoor Fitness. Matt currently offers specialist online consultation for runners & non runners struggling to achieve results. The ‘Sports Therapy Association Podcast‘ is recorded live every Tuesday at 8pm (UK time) via YouTube then upoaded to all podcast podcast apps.

Matt is not a sleep specialist but has suffered from insomnia and sleep deprivation for years. Keen to understand more this year he underwent a sleep study. Modern sleep research is now far more equipped at measuring the effect of poor sleep quantity & quality, and the results are pretty shocking as Matt Philips, has found.

Join us as we discuss many of the answers to the questions posed above and explore just why sleep matters. 

Find out more about the studies and researchers discussed via MAtt's month-long podcast series around sleep here:

https://www.runchatlive.com/sleep-awareness-month-sports-therapy-association-podcast/

Meet The Well HQ, Baz, Bella and Emma – the coach, the GP and the scientist. Independently, all three have worked with women for decades – training athletes, teaching body literacy and trying to smash the taboos that block progress. In 2018 they joined forces! 

The Well is built on cutting-edge science, expertise and experience. In this episode, Baz Moffat talks to Emma and Grainne about the work The Well is doing to contribute to a change in the narrative around women's health, specifically in schools and within female athletic team sports. 

To find out more about The Well and the work they are doing please visit https://www.thewell-hq.com/about/

This week's podcast episode was recorded for The Athletic Female course, a course that Grainne, Emma and Helen McElroy have written and produced for health and fitness professionals who work with the female athletes. You can find out more about this course by heading to www.theathelticefemale.com and or listening to season 2 where Emma, Grainne and Helen discuss the course in more detail.   

This interview is accessible to all members of the Athletic female but we wanted to share it with you on At your Cervix this week because it is such an eye opening interview. This week Grainne interviews Tianna Madison an American track and field athlete who specialises in the long jump and short sprinting events. She is a two-time Olympian with three gold medals.

Tianna shares her personal journey with Gynaecological issues and the difficulty she faced getting diagnosed as an elite female athlete with no children (at the time). ⠀⠀

We really hope you enjoy it and as always please share and review